Horyuji treasures

During a recent visit to the Tokyo National Museum I took today’s photo of the main room in The Gallery of Horyuji Treasures (法隆寺宝物館) in Ueno Park. The room doesn’t really look like this to the natural eye. I set my camera on the floor in the corner and left the shutter open for 8 seconds to get this view.

The room is actually very dark with a small light on each of the dozens of Kanon (観音) statues. I found the atmosphere to be amazing and very un-museum like. Instead of things lines up against the walls, there is nothing against the walls. Instead, there are the “glowing” pedestals lined up in neat rows. The statues are from different countries and artists spanning a couple hundred years (mostly 7th and 8th Centuries). But they are all somewhat similar in size making them both unique and uniform.